NEW YORK — Nutmeg recently completed work on a :30 spot that it submitted to the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. Each year, Doritos encourages fans to create their own commercials, with the chance of winning cash and being selected for broadcast during the big game. Nutmeg used the contest as an opportunity to show off its creative development, production and post capabilities.
The spot marks the second year in a row that the studio has participated in the promotion. Last year, its entry — shot on a shoestring budget one afternoon in the woods of Long Island — made it to the Top 30 semi-finals. This year’s entry was even more ambitious, calling for all hands on deck at Nutmeg’s facility in midtown Manhattan.
It’s a Bag features a young couple, watching TV at home. Amy is scarfing down a bag of Doritos, leading her husband to ask if she cares more about the nacho chips than about him? Flash forward nine months and Amy is in the delivery room of a hospital, about to give birth. The twist comes when the doctor delivers the new bundle of joy.
“It’s the chance to tell the world that, for an ad that ran on the Super Bowl, we acted as the agency, the production company, the post production company and the client,” says writer/director Dave Rogan. “It’s the prestige and possible work that can come as a result of the exposure. How enticing for a brand advertiser to know that they don’t have to spend two million dollars to create a Super Bowl-quality ad. We did it for two thousand.”
Nutmeg’s lounge was converted into the living room set. The facility’s Edit Room 9 was transformed by editor Brian Donnelly and chief technical engineer Jonathan Abrams into a hospital delivery room, complete with looping animation of vital signs, created by editor Stephen Walsh. Meredith Lynch plays Amy and Greg Bell, her husband. Two nurses are played by associate producer Becca Quinn and producer Caroline Nixon. Editor Rich Jack, outfitted in scrubs, plays the doctor.
The spot was shot using a Canon 5D with Canon CN-E Cine Lenses, recording to an Atomos Ninja Blade recorder/monitor. The crew recorded straight to the ProRes HQ codec. Andrew Guastella served as sound recordist, sound designer and mixer on the project. On-set, he used a combination of Sanken COS-11D lavalier microphones and a Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun microphone, recording to a TASCAM DR-680MKII. Editing was performed using Avid Symphony. Gary Scarpulla handled color, grading from an EDL on Assimilate Scratch. Audio editing and mixing was performed in Pro Tools. iZotope‘s RX4 was also used for audio processing.